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Jenna and Barbara, in Uniform
Profile Shows Pretty Smiles, Not Personalities, of the President's Daughters

By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 14, 2004; Page C01

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Post’s Givhan Needles Vogue’s Puff Job on Bush Twins

You have to read nine paragraphs into Robin Givhan’s critique of Vogue’s August story on the Bush twins before the Washington Post’s fashion writer takes her first dig at the magazine.

“This is not the kind of magazine that traffics in humanizing reality—one that finds reassurance in warts, foibles and missteps,” wrote Givhan in Wednesday’s Post. And later: “In Vogue, there are no pimples. Everyone glows.”

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Despite the recent craze over the stylish daughters, Robin Givhan of The Washington Post insists that their high-profile fashion choices are not genuine. "The clothes transform the daughters into archetypes," Givhan says in her article, "Jenna and Barbara, in Uniform." "They do not reflect the personality of the wearers. Their debut has all of the intimacy of a state dinner receiving line," says Givhan.

"They wear another kind of uniform," she continues, "one that speaks of youth, hipness and moneyed polish. The clothes tease the viewer, offering the faintest whiff of the twins' personalities," which she claims have gone from indiscreet college students to Stepford daughters."

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Condi Rice: Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan said the look was something straight out of "The Matrix."

Washington Post style writer, Robin Givhan critiques:

"Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal. When looking at the image of Rice in Wiesbaden, the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature. To shadowy daydreams. Dominatrix! It is as though sex and power can only co-exist in a fantasy. When a woman combines them in the real world, stubborn stereotypes have her power devolving into a form that is purely sexual."

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Kathrine Harris: Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan said her skin, quote, 'had been plastered and powdered to the texture of pre-war walls in need of a skin coat.'

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“The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower,” Robin Givhan, The Washington Post’s fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper’s Friday editions.

“And, indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults,” Givhan wrote.

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WaPo's Robin Givhan argues that John Bolton's haircut shows he lacks "respect for the job" of U.N. ambassador.

Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan, who today attacked UN Ambassador designate John Bolton: “His attire was not merely bland but careless. His hair was so poorly cut, it bordered on rude.” She wisecracked that Bolton’s locks looked like he had “shaken his hair dry in the manner of an Afghan hound.” His mustache looked ”like it should be attached to geek glasses and a rubber nose.”

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Givhan, Robin. “A First Lady's Lasting Look; Jacqueline Kennedy Brought Elegance to Politics.” Washington Post. 25 April 2001.

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Fortunes are changing in fashion

Web posted December 30, 1998

By Robin Givhan
The Washington Post

Clinton as cover girl: Hillary Rodham Clinton's appearance on the cover of American Vogue forever shook off her image as an unstylish first lady. More than that, the cover, coupled with the pictures inside, revealed a feminine, sexy and sophisticated woman who should be neither pitied nor feared.

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Washington Post reporter Robin Givhan quoted Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager, deep in a glowing Nov. 16 profile.

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Robin Givhan

George W. Bush “has enough hair to fully cover his head, but it is a dull gray thatch that is unremarkable and never seems to glisten even when he is standing in direct sunlight.”

Dick Cheney “has thinning white hair, and the few strands that are there are so lacking in body and bounce that in the presidential hair wars, they don't even register as wisps.”

John Kerry’s “hair may have turned silver, but he has arrived at age 60 seemingly without having lost a strand. What man wouldn't gloat, just a little?”

John Edwards makes Givhan’s heart pitter-patter, writing in one ardent passage that his “hair has regularly been referred to as a mop, but that suggests that it is messy or unkempt. Nothing could be further from the truth. He has a precise haircut with artfully clipped layers. His hair is a beautiful shade of chocolate brown with honey-colored highlights. It is not particularly long, but it is smooth and shiny. It is boyish hair not because of the style but because it looks so healthy and buoyant and practically cries out to be tousled the same way a well-groomed golden retriever demands to be nuzzled.”